Roman fasces

Type Object Region Rome Time c. -509–1

Symbolic object of supreme magisterial power in ancient Rome, a bundle of rods bound with an axe, carried on the shoulders by lictores before senior …

Timeline

c. -509Rome · LazioAfter the founding of the Republic, the fasces became standard regalia for consuls and praetors, carried by lictores, symbolizing the officials' judicial and administrative power within the city.
c. -300–-100Rome · LazioTradition held that a consul's fasces within Rome could not expose the axe blade, while outside the city or as commander the blade was bared, reflecting constraint by citizens' rights inside the city and military judicial power outside it.
c. -27–1Rome · LazioUnder the Principate the number and specification of fasces expanded with the emperor's authority, becoming the visual mark of supreme imperial power and spreading to provinces and allied states.

Sources

Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Roman Antiquities — Dionysius of Halicarnassus https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Dionysius_of_Halicarnassus/home.html
Symbols of Power: Fasces and the Roman Republic — Harriet I. Flower https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/classical-antiquity